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THE SWEPT HEARTH 



The Swept Hearth 



By AMORY HARE 

Author of "Tossed Coins" 



Lonjed I Autumn^ its silence^ its sadness^ 

And in the dark, as homenjoard I nvent 

Went nvith me, 

Like a companion beloved, 

By the ivayside, a brooklet singing. 

Margaret Napier. 



NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY 
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
MCMXXII 






Copyright, 1922 

By Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc. 

Printed in U. S. A. 




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TO DAD 

I did not know^before 
That you were always near 
With wisdom and with cheer 
Guarding the door. 

I could not always see 
The confidence and trust 
That, knowing life, you must 
Have risked in trusting me; 

Nor did I ever guess 
Your many patient hours 
Were potent with strange porvers 
To comfort and to bless, 

Till now , . . I wonder why 
I have been blind before. 
Why, as I left the door, 
I never heard your sigh. 

Forgive the eager wings 
That quivered so to fly. 
To beat the living sky. 
Poor fledgling things! 

Know that their little flight 
Has brought me to a land 
Where I can understand 
Who held the light. 



CONTENTS 

The Swept Hearth . . . . . 15 

To Pan 16 

Indian Summer 17 

In a Closed House 18 

Message From the Wainscoting . 19 

Unchanged 21 

Aspens 22 

Desecration 23 

August Moon 24 

Comparison 25 

The Far Frontiers 26 

April, 1921 27 

To Gertrude 28 

Liberation 29 

Two Days 30 

By An Unknown Grave . . . . 31 

The After Time 32 

Inheritance 33 

Oblivion 34 

To L. H. AND A. D. T. . . • . . 35 

Amour 36 

To A Child 38 

To A Pair of Unknown Lovers . . 39 

The Choice 40 

Fulfilment 41 

Requitement 42 



To My Son 44 

Lines For a Roadside Milestone . 48 

Beauty Eternal 49 

To Jean 50 

Blue Dusk 51 

The Buried Wish 52 

When You Came 53 

After the Rain 54 

April, 1920 55 

Transcience 56 

Song of Morning 58 

Rebirth 59 

Song 60 

To A Sealyham Terrier . . . . 61 

Possession 62 

An Excursion to Town .... 63 

Leaving . 6s 

Friendship 66 

When You Left 67 

"Adieu!" 68 

After 69 

Sonnet 73 

Petunia 74 

Larkspur • • 75 

White Iris 76 

Sonnet 77 

Memory '78 



'TwixT Dark and Dark . . . . 79 

Out of the Dark 80 

Life 81 

Conclusion 82 



THE SWEPT HEARTH 



THE SWEPT HEARTH 

They are so rapturous, the songs I would have 

made; 
They are so beautiful, my never painted skies; 
The kindly deeds my spirit rushed to do 
Are lost with all my moons that did not rise. 
Are gone with all the tunes I might have played. 
Yet, at the last trump, when the accounting's 

made, 
When I reply I shall not be afraid: 
"I swept my hearth . . . 'twas all that I might 

do." 



^5 



TO PAN 



Pan, I have watched so many midnights die, 
Wandered the dark towards many a frosted 

pane 
At which I knocked, receiving no reply, 
So sought the solace of the road again. 
Pan, I have wandered long, remembering 
The melody you piped when it was spring. 

Pan, in some golden dusk, weary of faring. 
Let me come quietly, the long road ended. 
To where I once was rapturous with sharing 
Danger we dared and beauty that we spended. 
Pan, let me fall asleep, remembering 
The melody you piped when it was spring. 



i6 



INDIAN SUMMER 

Mist on the lowlands; September dusk dying; 

and stars coming whitely; 
Wistful and winking, the lights on the hill ; and 

the owl that comes nightly 
Voicing the sorrow of darkness, as one in the 

dawn 
Re-awaking to grief will make moan for the 

dream that is gone. 

Knowing the mellower dark of a deeper Sep- 
tember 

Oh with the coming of night to be still and re- 
member I 

Re-living the pang that was rich and the 
anguish that blessed; 

Re-giving the gift that was kissed by the giver, 
unguessed. 



17 



IN A CLOSED HOUSE 

Darkness and the tick of leaves at the pane, 

And the wind on the hill ; 

The impotent grief of the trees in the rain 

And the kettle's song still; 

And a small cold air, smelling strong of the mat 

on the floor. 
Floating past in a tireless carouse 'twixt the 

hearth and the door. 



18 



MESSAGE FROM THE WAINSCOTING 

What are the things that move about at night 
In houses? Sleep lies everywhere, 
Thickly, like fabric; whitely dream the walls; 
The flowers have closed that nodded in the light, 
All day in vases posed. The moonlight falls 
Ghostly and thin about a willow chair 
That lately held the form of one who sewed; 
It creeps along a thread that dangles down 
From out a needle thrust into a gown. 
Midnight has struck and time seems to have 

slowed. 
Yet there are sounds, as if a spirit stirred. 
Busy and wise, at secret therapy. 
Without which men become as children strayed, 
Crying aloud and seeking for the word 
Their own minds fashion, follow and evade, 
Poor mazed defrauded babes in chancery 
Till sleep revives them, clothing them again 
With raiment 'gainst the cold. 'Tis said that when 
Chairs creak it is a sign there will be rain. 
And if the stairs groan that a stranger comes. 
What does it mean when mice pick up the 

crumbs, 
Flying from shadows of themselves? Do they 
Depict the crumbs of time that in a day 
One steals by thought from Aspiration's board, 
Flying before the shadow that is Self? 
Or do they merely prove that hunger drives 
The weakest to adventure? There are lives 



19 



That hang upon the raiding of a shelf I 
Even the mice must bargain with the Lord 
Of Chance, making him payment swift and 

accurate. 
A farthing's-worth of courage at the rate 
Of ten such in a midnight's passing, buys 
So many crumbs wherewith to mock the cold, 
So many heartbeats wrested from the skies, 
Power to enjoy till all enjoyment's sold. 



20 



UNCHANGED 

lowards evening there was sighing In the shutters; 
Towards midnight there was moaning in the eaves, 
Such as when someone frightened sobs and mutters, 
Such as one hears when someone sinning, grieves. 
Now at the hour when cocks should crow the morn 
The storm has fled and left the world forlorn. 

So in the dawning of a prostrate day, 
Breathlessly still, compute the tempest's plunder. 
There, in a frenzy to destroy and slay. 
The wind has ploughed the pride of old trees under: 
Great trees like tired men lie mutely dying, 
Arms flung to earth, too broken for outcrying. 

Here is a little house some woman tended 
Shorn of its roof, the windows battered in; 
Part of a doll whose face has once been mended 
Lies in a heap of crockery and tin 
Some woman kept and loved this place before. 
Else why were there geraniums at the door? 

Yet the storm's fury, cruel as it seemed, 
Has brought it small success, for even now 
Roots in the dark renew the vision dreamed 
Of tossing tree-tops ; men will go to plough. 
And women tend the rooms their men shall fill, 
Setting geraniums on the window-sill. 



21 



ASPENS 



On the hill as the wind goes over 

I see the trees, each in her fashion, 

Meet the wind's wooing. Haughtily 

The oaks repel that zealous lover; 

The poplars melting to his passion 

Rock with the woe of love; and naughtily 

The little firs dance with their skirts outheld, 

Daring and mocking and repeating "shame!" 

With every form of being 'tis the same, 

For each is variously beheld, 

"Yielding as poplars, mocking as the fir, 

Or so unbending as the oak trees are. 

But some, like aspens, hear the wind afar, 

And to the very roots are all astir 

With delicate response. And these are frail, 

Yet, strangely, they endure where oaks would reel, 

Giving themselves in beauty to the gale 

With yielding fortitude; they feel 

His breathless mastery in every leaf, 

Into the very sap his heart may beat; 

Yet through the snows that eddy round their feet 

They hold with rootlings strong beyond belief. 

However steep the path the wind goes roaming 

The aspen waits and quivers at his coming. 



22 



DESECRATION 

If one could pass from out another's life 
Swiftly and silently as, southward wheeling, 
Fly the wild geese from shores that cease to feed 

them! 
With no more strife 
Than brown leaves know when they are downward 

reeling 
From sleeping trees 
Whose boughs no longer need them — 
As silently as these ! 

But all this grief and clamour and out-cry, 
The great and forceful basic facts effacing. 
This crazed expostulation and reply 
All mute inherent dignity debasing, 
Make of a simple act a drabbled sin, 
A squalid mire to grieve and wonder in. 



23 



AUGUST MOON 

All day the sun forged molten ore 
To no planned shape, no given form. 
He danced to hear his bellows roar 
And plied his furnace more and more; 
The charcoal glowing bright and warm 
Made stars of filings on the floor. 

And shadows danced upon the wall, 
From joy or grief one could not tell. 
Twisting, turning, short and tall. 
Fearfully they rose and fell. 
And a hot metallic smell 
Rose and floated over all. 

From his furnace floated out 
Heat that scorched the grass at will, 
Beat the ground with dust and drought. 
Blew the parched leaves all about, 
Till the dark came up the hill. 

Darkness mocked him, softly creeping, 
Cool, inevitable, sweet; 
Drove him from his flames, upleaping. 
Made him dimly dream of sleeping; 
Seizing ore still red with heat. 
Half he flung Into the sweeping 
March of stars, as they went by. 
''There's the half moon In the sky I" 



24 



COMPARISON 

They have come back in starry beauty clad, 
Thrusting up from the purblind underworld 
With petals pursed for the sun's impassioned kiss. 
Tulips and daffodils, frail-tendrilled clematis. 
Blue hyacinths with waxen stamens curled 
To woo the bees. The good grass green and glad 
In the quick April wind. These things and I 
Have groped along the dark to watch the sky 
In this the promised hour of recompense. 
Well, one would think that such a wealth of light, 
And life, and colour, would the soul requite 
Past any deeper need of wealth. But this. 
This poignant bloom, the very bees In bliss 
Of industry, this hour Is like a lens 
Which In new sense enables me to see 
Where no life Is, nor ever more will be. 



2S 



THE FAR FRONTIERS 

On the far frontiers of the sky 
The sentry stars have been relieved; 
The hemlock where the owl grieved 
In midnight woe, gives forth the sigh 
That stirs a man's heart like a tree 
When ends the night's brave pageantry. 

And cockerels crow the coming morn 

On grass dew-starred and strangely green; 

Cobwebs are spread, and in between 

Ten thousand dandelions are born, 

While bright platoons of clouds are ranged 

And in the east the watch is changed. 

It is the hour one longs to touch 
The truth concerning life and death. 
Over the fields Eternal Breath 
Seems wandering, content as such, 
As though it had not broken free 
Through some earth body's agony. 

Dawn, with her smiling steady eyes, 
Kind with all knowledge, calm with Truth, 
Bright with the splendour of all Youth, 
And with acute remembrance wise, 
Speaks in a breeze, and all the earth 
Is shaken with celestial mirth. 



26 



APRIL, 1 92 1 

Be with me, April, ever in my mind 
To quicken me with eagerness, as when 
We two came up the hill for carnival. 
Seeking, still seeking, I have reached the wall. 
And waiting here I see you pass again; 
But I, my journey-mate, you leave behind, 
Observing how the apple-blossoms fall. 
And how the shadows hover on the grass 
Under old trees that tremble as you pass. 

Quests are so long sometimes that those who fared 
With so much panoply of silken sail 
Forget the cause. All motion must be fed. 
Endeavour must be crowned or 'twill be dead; 
Hope long deferred will ultimately pale 
And die away till nothing more is cared 
Ir or questing; and old sailors, it is said. 
Forget the majesty of ships and seas 
For sitting in the slow sun at their ease. 

So if there lies some echo of the Spring 
Beyond the hill where Summer will be weak 
, With birth of beauty, speak its name to me; 
If but a breath in passing it should be 
Yet speak of it and bid me haste to seek 
Lest I should wait to hear the blackbird sing. 
Or be betrayed by dreams, contentedly. 
Desiring no harvest, no September 
The while I have you, April, to remember. 

... . , . ; . ' \ 

27 



TO GERTRUDE 

You asked me if the will were mine to live 

Or not to live, whether my choice would be 

The surging road of Life, or peace and Death. 

1, joyously, 

Though wondering ever whence I draw my breath. 

Can make you answer after thinking well: 

Life with its magic holds me in its spell, 

Its strangeness and its wonder bid me follow; 

If but to hear the brown creek in the hollow 

Singing along the dark when rain has filled it; 

If but to see one field, when spring has willed it. 

Break into waves of green with sky for shore; 

If but to hear one white-throat at the door. 

Life were my choice, uncompromisingly. 

Life that must blind us till we learn to see. 

O stars that shine reflected in a stream I 

O plash and murmur by the ruined mill I 

O mists on meadows floating like a dream I 

O sea of wheat upfoaming on the hill I 

O darkling pines, forever starkly straining 

In lineal beauty towards a heedless North I 

O smell of autumn when the leaves are burning I 

O lowing where the cattle wander forth ! 

Only to hear the mating whippoorwill 

Pleading his passion on the darkened hill; 

Only to see the early morning light 

Make back-ground for the tall blue heron's flight. . , 

Leaving all loves, all hopes, all ecstasies, 

life gives enough to fill my soul, with these. 

28 



LIBERATION 

Heaven decreed that all things beautiful should be 

To all men free. 

Ugliness is such a secret thing, 

lurtive and dark, and ever menacing 

Invisibly. 

Beauty's for all. Wherever she has smiled 

(In women's eyes, 

The skies, 

In laughter of a child. 

In quiet talk of friends that time has tested) 

There men will bring 

tree tribute to the universal thing 

They see and forthwith worship unmolested. 

Unto all men will Beauty minister: 

They have but to be brave, and glad of her. 



29 



TWO DAYS 

A midnight to divide two days. But one 
Grew as the rose unfolding to the sun; 
Dawn on the other like a wanton reeled 
Across the heavens, with all her guilt revealed. 
Dawn woke a Queen. So safe she was and gay I 
It seemed a game to fling her joy away 
Hither and thither! Such a store she had, 
'Twas but a pastime making others glad. 

Dawn woke a beggar maid with bleeding feet 
Who wanders many a dark and windy street. 
Whose bread is Want, whose drink is bitter Sorrow 
Whose hope Is only loathing of Tomorrow. 

Laugh if you must, or weep; the gods I praise 
Who sent a midnight to divide two days. 



30 



BY AN UNKNOWN GRAVE 

It was a small dim place within a wall. 
The huddled graves stared dumbly at the skies 
Having the patient gaze of sightless eyes; 
The summer moonlight brooded over all. 
And by the poplar tree I found a stone 
Close to the earth, half hidden by the grass; 
I saw the idling crickets meet and pass 
Across the letters of the word "Unknown". 
Then a faint pity stirred me as I stood 
Watching the word that compassed a man's life 
With all its quick imaginings, its strife 
Of soul, slow-groping towards the hidden good. 
And suddenly I thought, "When all is done 
This is the epitaph of every man. 
This is the one truth since the world began 
That may be said of each and every one." 



31 



THE AFTER TIME 

Not in a city of the dead! Ah, not 

Where the ranged stones rub elbows in a plot 

Begarlanded on my memorial day. . . . 

But on some hillside where the plow will break 

The loam 1 trod the while 1 was awake 

Make a slim furrow, and within it lay 

The form wherein 1 lodged myself awhile. 

For there when April's earliest eager smile 

Blends with her tears, the bloom of cherry trees 

Will drift, and, in the lately garnered corn, 

November dawns will wake the huntsman's horn 

And cry of hounds make myriad melodies. 

Oh, 1 have loved not immobility. 

Not safety sure and sleek (futility 

Passing for wisdom in a scant disguise) 

Nor senseless gems, nor beauty carved in stone, 

But every living beaut)- I have known ! 

'Twas never calm of idling sunset skies 

That wooed my heart to peace, it was the sighing 

Of woods impassioned by the wind, the flying 

Of broken clouds across a stormy sky; 

Motion and contour and the beat of blood. 

Colour that gleamed an instant in the wood 

On pulsing wings; sound that came lilting by 

Reverberant with life: and hearts that woke, 

Fared forward through the dark, aspired and broke: 

All these my brothers were with great content. 

Go to some field when me you would be sowing 

Where wheat comes tenderly at April's blowing 

And earth on new creation is intent. 

3a 



INHERITANCE 

Not only in my mind have 1 had many Uves 

And wandered many stars, but with a sense 

Older than mind and lovelier. Some recompense, 

Some overdue accrued reward survives, 

And when least apprehended bids me warm 

My shivering being at celestial hres. 

So 1, inheritor ot old desires 

From many an unguessed life like unto mine 

(And yet unlike) grope towards delights, 

Cry out with the same griefs through lonely nights, 

Invoke the gods men bribed in Babylon, 

The stars blind Bartimeus called upon; 

Drink the same dark, as though 'twere purple wine, 

Wherewith to bathe a wound, to anoint and bless — 

Or steep the senses in forgetfulness. 



33 



OBLIVION 

Very bravely a high heart I kept, 

And spoke, too well, of how I loved the road, 

While ever onward, shouldering my load. 

And most of yours, so sturdily I stepped. 

But sometimes when the fire's embers died 

And you had gone to sleep beside me lying, 

I and the truth kept vigil side by side 

And knew the fire was but my spirit dying; 

Dying in the night unseen by any mind 

That might have come to flower beside its blaze; 

Blown by the breathing dark a thousand ways 

Till but the dust of embers there I find 

Extinct and sodden 'mid the April dew, 

Where danced the flame, the seedling pushing 

through 
And presently the flower or the tree 
Feeding on what was once the fire of me. 



34 



TO E. H. and A. D. T. 

That night my soul hung crucified 
I made no sound. When morning broke 
I saw the wisps of cottage smoke 
Writhe up the dreaming valley's side, 
And wondered that the day should break 
On souls that had no thirst to slake. 

And at the hour that men call Day 

Swift darkness came to succour me, 

In midst of which my agony 

By eager hands was wrenched away. 

With all the waking world unseen 

I knew what hands these must have been. 



^5 



AMOUR 



Love — It may be that love appears the same 

Bright vision to no two separate human souls. 

1 o one 'tis but a turgid tide that rolls 

Over the shores of sense to ebb again 

Leaving stark beaches strewn with things in pain 

Of death. To one it is a flame; 

To still a third the echo of a name 

That stirs the imagination to a zest 

For things unseen, untouched and unpossessed. 

Then how to tell 

The love that lived through every separate hell 

To which my soul was heir? 

Pain's like a country stretching everywhere, 

A country so immense, and so remote 

That sense of form and shape is lost or blurred. 

There one may watch one's self, a creature furred, 

Flying from fear, or writhing in a trap. 

Convulsed and palpitant, or feel the sap 

Of hope run out as if one wore a coat 

Of tender bark the woodman's axe had ringed. 

Or one may watch one's soaring spirit winged 

From some hid cover by the hunter's gun, 

And left to die unseen by anyone. 



36 



So when I say 

That love has been my fellow all the way, 
'Tis not some vague bright vision that I mean. 
In labyrinthian countries love has been 
Shelter from fear that snapped at fleeing flank; 
Peace for the furred thing creeping home to die; 
Sap to the seedling yearning towards the sky; 
Warmth for the breast and warning for the wings; 
Drink for all thirst, food for all hungerings ; 
Light of star when moons reeled down and sank 
In purple marshes where the weeds were rank. 
Whence things that went to drink did not return. 
To this my Love my soul and body burn 
Tapers that all the winds of heaven may fan 
And not extinguish. Holy oil I bring 
Pressed from my body's tireless labouring; 
Incense from dawns when April was awaking; 
Water from springs where deer their thirst were 

slaking 
Mid silence that was old when Time began. 
Nor fear, nor grief, nor sorrow born of man 
Has power to dim the light by which I see 
The love that proves my soul's security. 



37 



TO A CHILD 

At dawn I came upon her, partly clad, 

Sitting quite still. 

As owls sit when day robs them of their sight. 

There was a sort of beaten look she had 

As though some grief had caught her in the 

night 
And twisted her until 

Her mind had grown a trifle vague and light 
With so much anguish. Presently I said 
**My very Dear — ?" She straightway moved 

her head 
But made no sound, looking me mutely through, 
With wide eyes wet, 

Holding great tears, unshed, as young eyes do. 
Then suddenly her small white teeth she set 
Deep in her lip, as if stabbed from within. 
I thought that secretly somewhere she bled. 
And kissed the piteously pear-shaped chin; 
She moaned, "My little lovely bird! I found it 
—dead I" 

Then as I washed the stains of grief away, 

I, secretly, 

Bathed her tears with my own, 

To think that she 

Might turn to me and find herself alone. 

When some dark midnight flowered into day, 

Too mazed with grief for outcry or for moan, 

With none to kiss away the words she said, 

"My beautiful bright love! I found it — dead!'* 

38 



TO A PAIR OF UNKNOWN LOVERS 

As, when the outbound liners pass, 

The old ships, beached beside the grass, 

Stir In their shallow graves, and dream 

Of heaving seas that whirl and gleam; 

Or as a disused harp will sing 

When someone plucks a 'cello's string; 

Or distant horn, by huntsman wound. 

Awakes some old unseeing hound; 

So does an old heart wake, and bless 

Youth passing In Its loveliness. 



39 



THE CHOICE 

At the crossroads in the dark something stirred 
Vaguely to right of me; then, from the left, 
A form emerged and presently I heard 
A voice, a slow voice, hollow and bereft. 
Repeating "Choose." "Which road," I asked, 

"to Hope? 
Which leads down to the town men call 

Despair?" 
The Shape made answer, dangling a rope, 
"The power to choose makes man as free as air. 
Then choose and take the road, for you are 

free; 
A golden gift is choice." I smiled and said: 
"The left-hand way looks horrible to me. 
With what remains the soul of choice is dead." 



40 



FULFILMENT 

I only live when from my Inmost heart 
I draw the power to cover every scar, 
Feed every hunger and obliterate 
Each grim defeat, each heritage of war 
In some dark soul to whom I can impart 
Myself. Oh, it were strange if I should give 
The blow by which we both should come to live 
Most deeply — I, to heal. And you, to hate. 



41 



REQUITEMENT 

I prayed that sleep might minister to me, 
Might sponge the clotted thoughts from out my 

brain 
And make with her slow bloodless surgery 
Oblivion whence I should rise again 
Replenished. ... So long I slept, so deep, 
I scarcely knew the sun had sped the morrow; 
And I forgot that I had prayed for sleep. 
Had I but known what time would bring to me 
In that slow dawning to another sphere, 
I had been eager for each hour of fear, 
I had been happily 

Beaten with all the unseen thongs of woe. 
How could I know 

The beauty there is born of human sorrow? 
Music was only sound, not language, exquisite ; 
Colour but paint, and texture requisite 
But to evade the cold. . . . O Memory who 
Brings such bright wine to fill a sapphire cup I 
Without thy pang I still had had to sup 
The thin and tasteless fluid that was you 
Before grief brought me knowledge. . .Laugh- 
ter never 
Fell on my ears as though joy danced for me 
With anklets of bright bells; nor did I see 
The lighting of a smile (that lovely thing 
So often like a candle blown forever 
By those who know not sorrow's tutoring) . 



42 



How often have I trod down underfoot 
The pure and lonely flower of compassion 
Offering its self unasked? In ruthless fashion 
I spilled its petals and destroyed its root, 
Where now the holy bloom should drink my 

tears. 
And love, for which I ventured up and down 
The world, by many a highroad, many a town, 
I may not stir but love my heart's beat hears, 
I may not think without love's quickened sense, 
Nor peril know whence love may not with-hold 

me, 
Nor distance find where love may not enfold 

me; 
In time's relenting there is recompense. 



A -* 



TO MY SON 

I hold that home is holler than church; for 

church is but the place the Christ's grace 

visiteth 
Upon occasion by appointment made; whereas 

at home one needs but turn the head 
To find him near enough to touch almost, the 

while one sews or sweeps or sets the 

bread 
To rise. Church is the form, but home's the 

very pulse that animates the form, it is 

the breath 
Without which breath the form is atrophied. 
I go to church to offer my respect, as one goes 

humbly to a well-loved grave 
For memory's sake. Because the chivalrous 

Christ lived, loved and was crucified and 

died to save, 
Not payment-wise for souls foredoomed to 

sin, but that all men might heed 
How the frail flesh may die for love of Truth, 

The world well lost for Truth's divinity. 



44 



I think that Jesus' laughter must have been 

more beautiful than tears of lesser men. 
For me, I could not kneel to kings who have the 

pomp of armies, robes of flowing red. 
And all the childish trinkets proving power 

achieved by trampling on the simple 

dead, 
More kingly than their kings. My spirit's 

meek, my heart's at prayer, my soul 

kneels only when 
It knows that soul which was too great to need 

even the comforts that the poor possess. 
By every test the Christ is proven king, too 

kingly while he lived to rise and press 
Even his kingly claim but tenderly; enduring 

misconception, now as then. 
With but the will to love, and loving, wait. 



45 



Christ lives, I think, and speaks more poig- 
nantly by the warm hearth than at the 

altar-rail; 
Beside the still bed where the body breaks in 

the strange several ways of birth and 

death; 
In the hushed room where Love's old sacrament 

begins the dream that one day blooms in 

breath 
From yet another being, by Love invoked and 

unto Love apprenticed e'er the frail 
Weak fingers are uncurled by separate life. . . 

Christ lives in homes. I think he loved 

the light 
That gilds the chimneys and the window-panes, 

and lingers In the doorways overlong. 
He heard the midnight cocks, the bells at dawn, 

the evening wind that bears the woman's 

song 
Whose children sleep amid the shuttered dark; 

She whose belov'd finds surcease through 

the night 
Within the sickle of her curved white arm, with 

which she fells with such unfailing grace 
The thorny undergrowth of present cares, im- 
mediate needs, Implanting in their stead 
The flower of herself. . . . 



46 



Keep holiest the lowly hearth, for Jesus 

breaketh bread 
Wherever love is quick like fire to light the 

living beauty of so blest a place. 



47 



IJNES FOR A ROADSIDE MILESTONE 

Traveller, whoe'er you be 
Tread this dust respectfully. 
What lies underneath your feet 
Worked and wept and went to meat; 
Laughed and loved and not in vain 
Sank to trodden dust again. 

Special grace, the saints aver, 
Guides the lonely wanderer, 
So where'er your footsteps go 
Walk in faith and you shall know 
How the miracle of trust 
Plucks the spirit from the dust. 



48 



BEAUTY ETERNAL 

I watch it on the lonely moors, 
I see it glimmer on the walls 
Behind half-open cottage doors 
Where candles light the narrow halls ; 
I hear it wander over seas 
In ranks of bright battallioned rain 
And stir the huddled groups of trees 
That stand like cattle in the lane. 
A strange unearthly beauty, seen 
More by the soul than with the eye. 
Now trembling in the celandine, 
Now conquering the splendid sky. 

I used to think this beauty came 

At certain hours of time and place. 

Until I watched it, like a flame. 

Light the warm soul behind a face 

That life had marked. And then the truth 

Broke clearly. This unearthly light 

Is Love that touched my eyes in youth 

And burned its beauty on my sight. 



49 



TO JEAN 



All the cool night was filled with things you 

loved. 
The road ran like a stream beneath the moon; 
The meadows, drowsing whitely, held the 

sound 
Of tiny sleigh-bells shaking in a croon, 
Where countless crickets sang against the 

ground 
And peepers whistled sleepily of June. 
A little wind went past, and as it moved 
It stirred the perfume from the cooling grass, 
And instantly your spirit seemed to pass. 
Serene, past all belief, content, immune. 
So near you seemed I whispered to you "Dear, 
Look in my heart — I'll bare it as of old. 
You know the tale we two would fain have told, 
The tale we meant our little world should hear. 
Look in my heart — though much is not the 

same. 
Some shrines still stand with altars undefiled, 
A tallow taper still is tipped with flame 
Where Love knelt down, and passing Beauty 

smiled. 
Old, dear beliefs still live, although the dust 
Has settled on the dreams that gave them birth; 
Just to have known your gentleness and mirth 
Awakes old faiths, old fealty and trust. 
For this one night, your happy realm forsaking. 
Visit my heart and cure it of its aching." 



50 



BLUE DUSK 

Into the cool blue dusk of this dim place, 

Quietly, 

A small moth comes to flutter round my face 

And fly at me 

As though determined I should know it came 

To make of me her candle or her flame. 

O brief and fragile traveller! Whose will 

It seems. 

Is to alight upon me and be still. 

In dreams 

Lately my face was kissed, lightly as dew; 

Oh. was it you? 



51 



THE BURIED WISH 

So long ago it was, 

So dim that hour, 

So hidden is the place ; 

So thick the zealous grass 

With blue-eyed meadow-flower, 

I thought no trace 

Remained, save in my memory, 

To wake its wistful witchery. 

Yet when you passed so close to-day 

It stirred a little, sleepily, 

With twitching wings, 

As though it dreamed and tried to say 

That darkness and serenity 

Are weary things. 

Thus I shall stir perhaps some day 
When Spring comes dancing up my way. 



52 



WHEN YOU CAME 

When I was still a child I walked with God, 
Imperially clad in joy. My eyes 
Met the suggestive staring of the sod 
As frankly fearless as they met the skies. 
Incarnate Youth ! In highest heaven's sight 
I moved in beauty and I walked in light. 

But when my gaze was dim with blood and 

tears 
I could not lift to God my battered face 
Soiled with the dust of the unfruitful years, 
Childish with sorrow's pitiful grimace. 
I prayed, "Oh, send me one who bears the same 
Marked visage of my own!" And then you 

came. 



53 



AFTER THE RAIN 

Little petals floating down 

From the rose's scented crown, 

Floating down into the earth 

That once brought them to their birth 

Like my roses after rain 
I have come to earth again, 
With contentment in the hour 
That has brought my soul to flower. 



54 



APRIL, 1920 

When I had swept the cool stone floor 
And made the copper kettle bright 
1 stood beside the open door 
Watching the night. 
These many dusks the nights were chill 
And April's knock had been denied, 
While March's passion held the hill 
And all the upland fields were pied 
With patches of blown snow that whirled 
And whined when it was walked upon. 
Yet in this dusk I saw the world 
Salute the radiant gonfalon 
Wherewith blithe April leads her own. 

'I* 'p •n ^ 

I leaned against the door; the dark 
Had texture, like a pansy's cheek, 
The trees still desolate and stark 
Stirred restlessly, as though to speak. . . 
I seemed to know they only knew 
Words that made messages from you. 



55 



TRANSCIENCE 

I 

Trooping through the meadow by the beach 
With lips by berries stained, tired with the long 

day's play, 
Three children wandered down to the sea's rim. 
The sun sank down past the horizon's reach. 
Swift on the heels of disappearing day, lonely 

and dim, 
Came the moon's pale attenuated ray . . . 
And one child heard the moaning of the sea, 
One child alone grieved for the sea-gull's 

crying, 
And watched the beauty of the day's brief 

dying, 
Dumb with a vague sense of Its tragedy. 
And dimly guessed that it Is ever thus 
With all things wonderful: their magic lies 
In that same doom by which It fades and dies 
And, passing, leaves the vision dear to us. 



ss 



II 

Yet I remember wondering even then, 

Comparing evidence of what is changed 

In stars and men. For all things of the earth 

Die and move nobly to another birth; 

All things at some predestined hour are ranged 

To meet the awaited rapturous moment when 

Beauty gives each its flower and steps aside 

For death to crown it when It shall have died. 



57 



SONG OF MORNING 

What will you give me, O World, if I give 

My glad soul back to you? 

My glad soul that so long was fugitive. 

Not Joy, I'll warrant; no, nor sensitive 

Rapture, more exquisite than Joy; 

Nor this deep Peace, so new 

And yet so positive; 

Nor that swift song a woman sings at work 

with eyes all sun. 
You'll offer Pleasure, yes, 
But never Fun, 

(That prankish, urchin, page-boy to Delight I) 
Tempt me with Leisure, merely Idleness, 
And many more with whom the mask is slight. 
Ah, but you will not give me back the light 
That grows beyond the window-sill at dawn, 
Nor the soft whirring 
Of wings that flash so jubilantly bright 
To sail and settle on the lawn. 
Like petals wind shakes downward In the night 
E'er yet my Love Is stirring! 
Not these, nor all the beauty yet to make 
In countless ways, whcnas my Love's awake. 



58 



REBIRTH 



Out of the strong and subtle soil of earth, 
Sentient with lives in transiency of birth, 
The slim tree trunk has tapped the hidden 

springs 
That give it life and speak in whisperings 
From every trembling leaf, grown passionate. 

So from thy strong enduring soul I drew 
The sap that lifts me proudly towards the blue 
Illimitable skies, reborn to mirth 
From out the darkened chrysalis of earth. 
My thoughts like new leaves, green, 
immaculate. 



59 



SONG 



I only need a bit of sky, 
A bit of hills and weather, 
A bit of hearth to ponder by 
If so it be together; 
For now I have the Spring's delight 
When April winds are chaffing, 
And all my world is kept alight 
By merry brown eyes laughing. 



60 



TO A SEALYHAM TERRIER 

Face that I see when In the dawn the moon 
Pales and goes drifting like a broken cloud; 
Eyes that gaze back at me, serenely proud, 
Or filled with frolic in the idle noon 
Invite me to forget whate'er I have 
Of weariness; brown pools that hold a laugh, 
Or, seeing my own eyes fill, so swiftly grow 
Dark with the sorrows of your faithful race, 
Teach me the secret of the patient grace 
Wherewith your singleness of heart you show. 

For I, as you, have shown the great content 
Of listening to one voice beside the fire; 
I have gazed upward, touching my desire 
With my sight only, utterly intent, 
My own eyes dark with images reflected 
From those I watch, yet partly recollected 
From what in other stars I may have known. 
Face that I see before I fall asleep, 
With brown eyes so adoring and so deep. 
In that mute love you are not quite alone. 



6i 



POSSESSION 

All men possess, but few have knowledge of 
What they possess, nor why it is, nor when 
Possession ceases. Women more than men 
Accept the gift of sorrow or of love. 
Knowing themselves too impotent with each, 
Should love or sorrow guest with them a space. 
And there is something in a woman's face. 
If she be gentle, lovelier than speech. 
Which supplicates those two guests to be 

kind. . . . 
Some hold to horde, and others seem to have 
Those whom they love bound to them by a 

laugh, 
(More binding bond than which they may not 

find!) 
For there is something in all minds that live 
In freedom by love's courtesy bestowed. 
Which binds them ever to the homeward road 
More greatly to return, greatly to give. 



62 



AN EXCURSION TO TOWN 

These are the things that I have seen 
And would have told you had you been 
Beside my elbow all the day 
Instead of being far away: 

I saw an old man wander down 
The chill dark highways of the town. 
His coat was sodden, worn and thin, 
Caught with a rusty safety-pin 
Across his meagre breast; and dull 
His old eyes were, all pitiful 
With weariness; he hung his head 
And sold red pencils for his bread. 

And next : I stood within a store 

Where grapes and red-cheeked apples were. 

The saw-dust underneath my heel 

Smelt spicily of orange-peel, 

And fragrant fruits from many climes 

Suggested jovial Christmas times 

Or was't the old man's hungry gaze 

That drew my thoughts to Christmas days? 



63 



The other things I wished to share 
Were common things, but passing fair: 
The smell of hot toast, slightly burned, 
That floated forth as I returned 
Tired of the city's shifting scene, 
Glad of the stillness and the green 
Sweet country, where the evening birds 
Were speaking little sleepy words. 

You would have liked the bit of lace 
Upon the table's polished face, 
And gaily would have gleamed for you 
The china with its band of blue; 
You would have liked the homey smell 
There is in rooms where children dwell. 
And smiled to see the loving care 
With which the little house was fair 
To look upon. . . . These I have seen 
And would have told you had you been 
Beside my elbow all the day. 
Instead of being far away. 



64 



LEAVING 



All 1 have known in this place 

Confronts me as I leave it: 

Love of a quiet face, 

Fear lest I grieve it, 

With its dark believing eyes 

Judging me beyond surmise. 

This chair and this ! This bowl where flowers 

were: 
'Twas when I walked with fear I smiled and 

placed them there. 
These books within my palm lay long; 
These old-time mats I trod upon 
The days when, spite of all, a song 
Came bubbling to my lips (You heard I) 
My mind was like an April bird 
That sings before It wakes at dawn. 



65 



FRIENDSHIP 

If it should be this parting is for long, 
A high sure heart shall be my great endeavour, 
Worthy of you. No parting is forever 
Where hearts have leapt and blended like a 

song, 
Thoughts walked old happy places side by side. 
In mutual remembrance sanctified. 

Nor will I call you lost because no speech 
Of words, from you, my consciousness may 

reach; 
For always there were things through which we 

spoke. 
Flowers, and the dusk, and dawns when we 

awoke 
Thinking of one another, though apart; 
Old roads once shared, loved tunes, and even 

trees 
That caught our thoughts together from the 

heart; 
Were there no others, there would still be these. 



66 



WHEN YOU LEFT 

Watching the west until the light was gone 
I heard a train's rush dwindling away 
Into the hush of distance, and with dismay, 
Quite suddenly I knew I was alone. 
As some glad child all afternoon will play 
Heedless of time, until the stealthy dark 
Affrights him with its nearness, while the day 
Dies to the farmstead beagle's lonely bark; 
And swift instinctive fear of the Unknown 
Strikes at the soul of him and leaves him dumb. 
So I, amazed, saw that the rxight was come 
To me, who had so loved the light we shared, 
The sudden darkness found me unprepared. 

Oh, I had thought I knew that it was sweet 
To hear your laughter floating up the stair. 
To come into a room and find you there 
With quick cool hands outstretched my hands 

to meet; 
I thought my eager spirit was aware 
How blest a thing it is merely to move 
Across a room and round a fire-side chair 
To hear and see and touch the thing you love. 
Yet not until the train had rushed away 
And left the silent dying of the day 
To stab my understanding with a star 
Did I discover what these matters are. 



67 



''A DIEUI" 



Since we must part, in pity let it be 
As two whose separate ways lie east and west 
Unknown to them; as though they suddenly 
Paused in the quick exchange of thought and 

jest 
To scan the road, and found it goodly still. 
And one with a glad laugh turned up the hill. 
And one with quiet heart went down the glen 
Thinking it would be sweet to meet again. 



68 



AFTER 



I 

Oh this, oh this in lieu of broken words, 
Or the blind heart protesting 'gainst the mind 
That drives the poor tricked body, as the birds 
Are lured by false cries floating down the wind. 
"Goodnight — Till soon." Then each his sepa- 
rate way, 
Unguessing that the dawning of the day 
Would find one traveller's footsteps lost, or 

learning 
An alien road, whence there Is no returning. 



69 



II 

And now for the cool vastness of slow time 
Which once we chided for indifference. 
Oh now to turn away from where the dead 
Lie with the swift reward of their offence, 
And in oblivion, at once sublime 
And terrible, seek neither board nor bed 
But only to be lost. . . . Oh, it were best 
To dice with chance and lose all with a jest, 
Then fling the door shut with a merry blow, 
And laughing still, stamp out into the snow 
With ears still echoing laughter, and the din 
One leaves behind in that amazing inn 
Wherein Youth lodged for madcap carnival. 
Go then to Time and darkness, they who keep 
The fields where all who have the need of sleep 
Wander, unjudged, with dreams for coronal. 



70 



Ill 

So this is truly so : this thing I guessed 
When but a child, unthinking. All things go 
From out the forms in which they were pos- 
sessed, 
Beyond the sight of those who loved them so. 
And all we learn by power to distinguish 
'Twixt this and that, their lasting wealth to 

keep, 
Is at the last but learning to relinquish, 
To lose, and smile, and smiling fall asleep. 



71 



IV 

I wonder many things, and one is this : 
Who is it plants within the human breast 
The impulse to be great, to largely Be? 
Who sends the spirit this divine unrest, 
The need to give where giving needed is? 
Who sends the vision and who lights the fire? 
Who keeps awake the exquisite desire 
To bless? And who, who keeps all these from 
me? 



72 



SONNET 



I have been taking that road and then this 
Because your door was barred against my 

breast, 
Thinking to lose my sense of loneliness. 
But always, whether venturing or at rest. 
Remembrance walked with me and with her kiss 
Set the old torch aflame again in me, 
Lit but one road, and that the road that led 
Back to the doorway where my spirit pled 
For lodgement in your soul's sincerity. 
I shall not wander further, but shall wait. 
Not at your door, but haply at the gate. 
Where the cool night shall minister to me. 
Sending me scented surcease from the clover, 
And peace of stars, till dawn shall call the 

rover. 



73 



PETUNIA 



I had thought to catch your petals up 
When this month's moon had passed the cedar- 
tip, 
Holding your tinted cheeks to mine for happi- 
ness. 
Standing before you now with bitten lip 
Still pale from draining my so bitter cup, 
I could not risk your gentle faces near. 
Lest the soft lips in brushing past my ear 
Should speak of one who bleeds for my distress. 



74 



LARKSPUR 



All day the bees have robbed your freighted 

cells 
Bearing the perfumed pollen far afield 
For swift fruitions and predestined births. 
So with the mind If beauty it would yield. 
Thought is but pollen hidden in the wells 
Of conscious being. Traffic must ensue 
'Twixt mind and mind, or time may not renew 
The bloom that stars a myriad darkened earths. 



75 



WHITE IRIS 

Against the purple garden gloom 

White irises have come to flower; 

Tell me, O Mirrors of the Moon, 

Whence cometh your frail power? 

Who willed you into being? And unto whom 

Do you suspire, so pale, so passionate? 

Do you not know that I must grieve and wait 

While your completion ripens to its noon? 



76 



SONNET 



Do you not know then that no song that's sung, 
No rhymed phrase, no harmony of note, 
But has been wrought from out a heart that 

wrung 
A bloody drop for every thought it wrote? 
Have you forgotten that each day that springs 
Holds for some craftsman rapture or despair, 
The broken knees or the ecstatic wings. 
Full-throated joy or impotence of prayer? 
Have you forgotten that each dumb desire 
Of those who strive to be articulate 
For other souls is yearning writ in fire 
Upon a heart aflame and passionate? 
Or has so much disuse of heart and head 
Rusted your mind's blade while 'twas scab- 

barded? 



77 



MEMORY 



Amazing World ! Is memory merely, then, 
A cache for hidden things to which one goes 
From time to time by merest chance as men 
Visit an attic in a semi-doze? 
I tell you not one word of yours but knows 
Its place among the striding ranks that are 
The legions of my memory, making war 
On that oblivion which fain would close 
Our love's brave eyes, leaving no scent nor stir 
Where so much light and breath and perfume 
were. 



78 



'TWIXT DARK AND DARK 

So little warmth 'twixt cold and cold, 
So little light 'twixt dark and dark 
Such fanning of the living spark 
Before we come again to mold I 

Such purposeless and aimless strife, 
So much of misdirected good, 
Small wonder caryatids brood 
Eternally on human life ! 

Small wonder that the mind evolves 
From out its self the will to pierce 
Beyond the hunger, blood and tears; 
Small wonder that the soul resolves 

Its separate consciousness to prove 
Beyond the span of passing flesh. 
To feed on beauty and refresh 
Its valour at the hearth of love. 



79 



OUT OF THE DARK 

Out of the dark your face bent down to mine; 
In mid-air your mind poised to meet my own; 
Your voice heard clearly with each setting sun; 
Your sight to penetrate to the divine 
That lies amid the dross in everyone; 
Your ear attuned to catch the voiceless moan 
Wrung from my spirit for my frailty. 
How can I say that time is niggardly 
Because this hour I find myself alone? 



80 



LIFE 



Life is a shepherd lad who strides and sings 
Leading his flock, his brow bared to the sun, 
Who knows the good grass and the hidden 

springs 
From whence streams of eternal beauty run. 

Life is a cowherd, old, with bleeding lips, 
Driving fear-maddened cattle down a hill. 
With matted hides worn raw at knees and hips. 
Knowing no sleep, nor leisure to be still. 

For one the dew, the hare-bell and the song; 
For one the mire, the hurry and the thong. 



8i 



CONCLUSION 

Whether the choice be taken ill or well, 

The sun is speeding 

The last hour of the day. 

Soon the hid spire will sound its evening bell, 

And the heart's bleeding 

Will, for a little time, be washed away 

In the dark stream, the impartial tide of sleep. 

The stars will keep 

The souls that fall asleep the while they pray. 



THE END 



82 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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